Shire perfection

As other boys his age became enthralled in football or comics, Tony would sit on a fence, pretending to his schoolfriends that the horses in the fields were all his. He was an avid fan of Roy Rogers and his horse Trigger and he longed to be a cowboy like his hero.

He even pinched the milkman's horse and float once when he was aged five-and-a-half, leaping aboard and clicking his tongue like he'd seen the milkman do. But he only got as far as the next stop; the horse was programmed to go no further.

"I was obsessed with horses, there's no two ways about it," he laughs.

But it would be another 40 years before he would realise his dream, and open up a tourist attraction which would celebrate the Shire horse.

During the intervening years, he married Ann and built up a number of successful businesses, including motorbike restoration and ladies and children's wear.

It was while on holiday in Rosedale, North Yorkshire, pony trekking with Ann and the children - Anita, Shirley, Glen and David - that he became determined to change his life. When the couple spotted a run-down two-bedroom cottage with 40 acres near the village of Staintondale, near Scarborough, it seemed ideal for a horse-related venture.

"From the moment I saw it, I thought this is God's little garden," he recalls.

Ann was more sceptical, wondering where the children would go to school and why they were swapping their newly-built four-bedroom house for a dilapidated cottage with a damp problem. Even the workmen who came to fix the damp asked Tony "who would want to live in a God-forsaken place like this?"

But gradually, the cottage was transformed into a family home and in 1973 Tony bought a couple of Shire horses. It was when he took one of his two-year-old fillies to the Great Yorkshire Show near Harrogate that he realised the public's love of them.

"The interest was amazing, people were just spellbound," he says. "I thought it would be a brilliant idea to keep the horses and start it up as a visitor attraction as well as collecting and restoring old horse-drawn vehicles."

To begin with, he needed capital, but when he went to visit his bank manager, he returned empty handed. "He looked at me and said 'Mmm. Shire horses as a visitor attraction, Mr Jenkins?' Then he paused and said 'Are there many like you'?"

Undeterred, Tony, 73, kept his business selling ladieswear in Nottinghamshire and spent the next nine years collecting and restoring old vehicles and breeding Shires. In 1985, a year after he'd sold the business, he opened the Staintondale Shire Horse Farm.

"It was very simple looking back," he says. "If we were hay making we would take the visitors with us and do little demonstrations."

But after the first couple of years the farm was struggling. Tony decided they needed better signage from the busy A171 and put up his own signs. But the signs fell foul of the North York Moors National Park Authority, and he learned from a reporter that the authority was considering an enforcement order to close the farm down.

"They said that the farm was detrimental to the environment, can you believe it?" he recalls. "So I decided to take a pair of Shire horses to the planning meeting in Helmsley. We stopped up all night polishing the brasses and when we got there I felt a little bit invincible, with these two majestic Shire horses. We drove them from the car park all the way up to the Parks office."

Tony appeared on regional television and in national newspapers with his Shire horses outside the planning meeting. Eventually, he secured the permission he needed to run the farm as a visitor attraction.

The Jenkins went on to create a wildlife meadow and wood for picnics, build an indoor arena so they could cater for visitors whatever the weather, and diversify the attraction to include Shetland ponies which the children can groom, a cowboy show and a lasso competition. Tony even grows food to sell in the caf.

From the first few hundred visitors in 1985 (they open for four months a year) the numbers by last season had swelled to 12,000. They have also won numerous tourism awards, including the National Farm Attractions Network's Farm Attraction of the Year in 2002 and a Yorkshire Tourist Board White Rose Award.

And Tony finally got to be a cowboy. He bought his Palomino horse Bertie as a two-year-old and has taught him a few tricks, just like Trigger used to do.

"He's so clever," he beams. "I can ride him up and down a tippy bridge and he stands there while I lasso him. He can almost bend down on one knee and I've even taught him to pinch my gun when I walk away."

But while Tony has recognised the need to expand the attraction while keeping the Shire at the centre of the farm, the breed in general is under threat.

One of the largest horses in the world and standing up to 19 hands high, the Shire is a descendant of the medieval "Great Horse" which came to England in 1066 with William the Conqueror. The breed was boosted by imports from the Netherlands and went on to work for man, carrying knights into battle in medieval times and pulling ploughs, canal boats, and bread vans in later years.

But by the Second World War the Horse Age was deemed to be over, and although the last quarter-century has seen a resurgence in the breed, The Shire Horse Society has become increasingly concerned recently over the dwindling numbers.

The number of breeding mares has dropped by a third since 1995 and in 2003 there were only 100 filly foals left in the UK, which is not enough to replace the horses dying from old age. There are thought to be fewer than 3,000 shire horses left, meaning attractions such as Tony's will soon be the few places to see them.

Says Tony: "We've actually had one or two people ring here to see if we would adopt one, which years ago would never have happened. I think there's such a very small market place for them now."

Tony dons his cowboy hat and brown leather jacket and we go out to meet the Shire stallion, Mascot, who is 25 years old this year. As Tony calls out to him, he lifts his majestic head and picks his way steadily down the field to his owner. He pokes his soft nose forward and nibbles happily on a few blades of grass Tony has pulled up.

"He was born in this field," he says, patting Mascot's neck and looking every inch a horse whisperer. "He has such a lovely temperament. We have five shires and it's one of the most rewarding things to think we've had custody of them for so long. I've bred most of them here and when you're there at the birth, they become quite like family."

The sun has come out, the birds are singing and the sound of wind chimes can be heard from the farm. Away from the busy stresses of modern day living, the fields which stretch out towards the sea in the distance provide the perfect surroundings in which to see the Shire.

"We've been here 36 years and have got so involved in it," says Tony.

"I've never wanted a commercial attraction with large play areas and assault courses. This is my life, my horses and my home. All I've wanted is for people to come and enjoy nature, go on picnics, and love the horses."

l Staintondale Shire Horse Farm is open four days a week: Sundays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays from Friday, May 20 until Sunday, September 18. Admission is £4.50 adults, £4 over 60s, £3 children with the third child and over in a family £2. Children under two are free.

l For more information contact (01723) 870458 or log onto www.shirehorsefarm.co.uk.